EVE Information Portal

I've not done the NPE for ages... but reading through these posts I really like the idea of getting Crimewatch explained to newbies, especially as it's being redone fairly soon (summer?).

Common scams and the fact that extortion and scamming are fully supported in eve (and survivable with a few tips) would be really good.

Sending them on a suicide mission is a really good idea, but i'm not sure forcing it to occur as part of the starter missions is a good idea, better to know its something you should do and have the choice as to when. shameless self link. Putting it in the missions just makes it a "stupid game made me die" event i think.

Also, does the IGB support videos these days? Perhaps the tutorials and what not could link to official vids like the probing tutorial, being able to see the interface being used will help when they miss an "obvious" button click. They're the worst queries to help newbies with, as they can't mention that they didn't click the button because they don't know about it! .

One thing my girlfriend who is starting out her journey into EVE said, and it just made total sense to me:

"Why are there no general descriptions of cruisers, frigates, battlecruisers etc.?"

What she meant was that there is no information about the ship types and where do they fit in, and that would probably be a decent addition for new players. I thought it would make sense to have a show info type window for all the ship types, from frigates to supercarriers in addition to ship specific (as in Damnation, Loki, Omen etc.) show info information bits.

EDIT: THE UI FOR PETE'S SAKES UPDATE THE DAMN UI! :D

Fix the UI... YES IT IS REALLY REALLY BAD!

Losing ships is not bad.

New players need to be told how to look for a good corp in detail. ( recruitment channel, forums, the new corp finder, they all need to be explained in detail. )

Fix the UI It needs a total overhaul

Fix the UI

Ok this raises some good points, here we seem to have a new player who's making an attempt at learning things. But admittedly has little concept of how fitting works, and shows proof by talking about WCS for PvE content (alot of new players would say hey great something to keep my ship from dying). Granted they say they like the tutorials, but there is a certain amount of the fact 'they don't know what they don't know' going on here. Clearly some information on the logic behind common fitting styles and the usefulness of some common modules would be a good idea. (Maybe even some well respected fits for basic frigs/destroyers/cruisers saved to the starter corps, corporation fittings list?)

Making the NPE something players walk away from feeling satisfied is one thing, the real challenge is making sure that the NPE experience lets them walk away with the knowledge they actually need to survive in various situations. For example, anyone who ever wants to leave empire is going to need to know all about the d-scan, gate mechanics, gate guns etc. A fledgling industrialist should know about common scams, how suicide ganks work (i.e. how do they make profit despite losing their ship). Granted, there's many corps out there that specialize in this type of thing, but some of the first material they cover is useful to nearly every single player out there and so should really be covered under the NPE.

As an aside, I don't like the title of this devblog, any form of the word easy, should never be in the same sentence as EVE. EVE simply is one of the if not the most complicated/intricate/difficult MMORPGs out there, and that's why most of us are here instead of somewhere else. Although it is important to make the knowledge available to new players, making things 'easier' or 'simpler' is misrepresenting aspects of the game, and that will eventually catch up with the players, something about teaching people to fish rather than just giving them handouts comes to mind.

I wrote an earlier one this touches on something different.

Having just ran the tutorial in Jan on a new alt, one thing that upset me is that as i got further into it, I couldn't play the tutorial without spending time training. This is not conducitive to making a newbie want to continue playing EvE. It is one thing to introduce the idea to the way skill progresses in EvE, it is a completely different thing to hijack your own tutorial at its alter. Give civ versions of everything and a skillbook afterwards. If you've built the difficulty of the mission around the idea that they need Frigate 3 by the end of the Arc, politely point out to them that it would be a good idea to toss that in the skill que at the outset of the arc. You don't need to tell them the exact reward they are getting.. but general hookup that it may be a good idea is, in fact, a good idea.

Curior missions in the newbie arc should be done away with, unless it is within the confines of teaching them something else. I hate the things, I hate hauling things around New Eden in general, but I do it to be able do something else. Hauling for haulings sake is boring, but if you present it as a buy order.. or a sell order. "Here is a BLAH item that can only be gotten from this newbie mission, selling it here is completely worthless, open up the market window and sort the buy orders from high to low and you will see a (CCP Sanctioned) buy order for this item two jumps over with a higher value. Sell it here for very little if you want, or haul it two jumps over for more.".

I am of the opinion that you can teach them everything in the game through a tutorial without "dumbing down" the game. Teaching them how PI works inside a tutorial doesn't make PI any easier, it just makes it accessable. Teaching them how to survive in a wormhole doesn't make a wormhole any easier, it just makes it more accessable.

I am also of the opinion that my answer to a general question about an entire game mechanic should never be to "google it", or posting a link to a tutorial. My answer should be, "Open Help, Click on the R&D Tutorial, It'll walk you through it.". Google and the wiki should only be for in-depth coverage.

That includes EVERYTHING. POS management, there should be a tutorial. R&D, Tutorial. Sov Mechanics, Tutorial. Drug Manufacturing, Tutorial. Corp Managent, Tutorial. IHUB, Tutorial. Faction Warfare, Tutorial. Wormholes, Tutorial. PI, Tutorial.

We are talking a basic tutorial to get them up and running on any aspect of gameplay that anyone may find themselves wanting to do without having to go to google. Not in depth coverage with a wall of numbers. Just a basic do this, and you can fiddle around with it now that you have a base understanding to tailor it to your needs.

Accessability does not mean dumbed down. Accessability means people are actually able to get their hands on it without leaving the game. Every time a player needs to leave the game to learn HOW to play the game, the game has failed. Stop being proud of the learning cliff. Give players step by step guides, it won't change EvE. We already have step by step guides on every subject of EvE. The internet is full of them. The problem is that only the old players know about them. Yet we still find Eve fun because we know it's in how all the systems interact and are dependant on each other that makes the game interesting.

Give new players what we already have, in game, without going to go search for it.

Hi all,

Maybe it would be possible to involve more experienced players into whole NPE. Like some kind of voluntary group that you can submit your toon and Eve will randomly assign you to help and guide a newbie in some specific aspect of Eve. Newbie would be under wings of more experienced guide who would for example tank damage in missions (let's put aside whether missions are good or bad) or "vet" would fly hauler with some tutorial "very important cargo" and newbie would have to scout for him at gates.

To make it profitable for both sides "vet" could gain LP or ISK or sth else. Cooperation could be limited to one mission only or could last as long as both vet and newbie would like to work together.

When they end their assignments newbie could have short survey to submit with feedback about quality of vet's help and overall NPE. Rates newbie gives to vet would put said vet higher into some general ranking and maybe it could be a factor how much award vet will gain next time or sth like that.

That's only an idea and it would have to be really well done to minimize opportunities for abuse but maybe it could be a way to improve NPE and pull bitter vets out of their dark places :)

Any thoughts my fellow newbie friendly capsuleers?

Oh,... bummer.

Good luck in your efforts though. I might need to take some time off and maybe replay the NPE in a half - one year.

I haven't done the recent tutorials, so things might have changed since then, but I still remember a few points about my latest alt. They suck when describing how to actually fight. I think it was something like here's a target, fly to it, lock it and activate guns >> target dies from a few shots >> congratz you know how combat works in EVE \o/. I know it's a big area to cover, but you could at least cover some basics and have links to evelopedia for basic fittings of those roles.

The tutorials also directed heavily towards missioning and mining. These are arguably the two worst gameplay areas EVE currently has, so why highlight them so heavily? Either improve them gameplay wise and make them something worth highlighting or reduce their emphasis significantly.

Make sure newbies understand you are allowed to lie, scam, trick and steal in this game. Hammer in their scull the point, that while there are mechanics you can use to minimize the risk of such things happening, in the end they are responsible for themselves and need to use common sense when playing EVE. Use common scams/tricks relevant to noobies as an example.

Finally, show don't tell. Block of text isn't going to stay with anyone the first time they play. Show any way you can. Use in game means, missions, CQ and out of game resources. Provide one central place where everyone can repeat or have access to these resources anytime they want. I'd suggest using a special section of evelopedia as this newbie tutorial depository of resources.

Just wanted to jump in this thread and say how much we appreciated the suggestions, stories and shared experiences. They're all quite helpful in one way or another, and it's heartening to hear that many of them have been parts of discussion within development (and I can vouch for them being in marketing discussions as well).

So yeah, thanks!